The Virogene Hypothesis of Psychosis

Abstract

The viral hypothesis of psychosis has its origin in the concept that there are major environmental determinants of the onset of psychosis, and in observations that schizophrenic psychoses sometimes occur in relation to infective illness. Thus, on the basis of the psychoses seen in association with the influenza epidemic of 1918, both Menninger (1928) and Goodall (1932) proposed that schizophrenia might be due to a virus. If, as seems probable, these postinfluenzal psychoses were a direct manifestation of infection with the influenza virus, this would demonstrate that schizophrenia-like illnesses can be caused by a viral encephalitis. The major question at issue is whether schizophrenia as it commonly occurs could be due to an as yet unidentified agent, perhaps interacting with a genetic predisposition.

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